Sunday, June 11, 2017

The wet, slurpy blessings of dogs

By Tom Walker

witsendmagazine

For much
too long, I’ve lived without the sound of toenails clicking on our tile floors,
the sensual pleasure of cuddling up on the couch with a warm furry body, and the
not-altogether unpleasant surprise of slurpy kisses on the ear.

Dog
blessings.

Half a
dozen dogs have lived with us over the years. Each of them became part of our
family, and each left an aching void when they died. The death of our sweet old
Molly hurt so much that Linda and I decided she would be our last dog.

We want to
spare ourselves from that kind of pain, sure; but we also want to be fair to a
dog. Health problems make it impossible for us to exercise a dog properly; we’d
have to have a couch potato canine or a professional dog-walker, and those
don’t appeal to us.

And neither
of us is a cat person. So that’s out, too.

Buddy the Beagle

Enter Buddy. He’s our grand-dog, an extremely
cute little beagle belonging to our daughter, Christina Walker Rowden. We get
to dog-sit Buddy when Christina’s away. This is an ideal way to briefly share
our home with a dog, without actually owning one.

Buddy has
stayed with us several times, and each time is an adventure. Once, he chewed up my i-Pod ear buds, but that was my fault; I left them lying on a table where
he could reach them.

Mainly,
though, he spends his time incessantly hunting for badgers (or whatever it is that his beagle
DNA drives him to hunt) in our backyard. As far as I can tell, badgers take the
shape of lizards, birds or whatever else is lurking in our trees and shrubs.

He also
digs lots of holes, because obviously badgers must be hiding underground
somewhere if they aren’t lurking in the trees or shrubs.

Other than
getting up to let Buddy in or out of the backyard every ten minutes or so,
taking care of him is no problem at all. At bedtime, we simply smear some
peanut butter on the inside of his Kong dog toy, put it inside his cage and
lock him up.

Then he’s
good until about 5 a.m. That’s when the whining and crying started this
morning. Hey, we had to get up sometime, anyway.

Donald
Trump, I’ve read, does not care for dogs, cats or pets in general. As a result,
for the first time in roughly 130 years, the White House is without the sound
of clicking paws on its hardwood floors, thejoyful yips of a dog welcoming the Oval Office occupant back to the
family residence.

It’s hard
to imagine the place without a Fala or Millie or big, galumphing Bo. A Trump
supporter once offered to give him a golden doodle, but he turned it down. Not
enough time for something as frivolous as a dog with funny-looking hair, he
said. Guess it might interfere with his twittering.

If ever a
president could benefit from a friendly lick in the ear, it’s Trump. For one
thing, medical studies have found that pets help lower their owners’ blood
pressures – surely something that could help the orange-faced president as well
as the nation. Now that Melania and Barron have moved into the White House, maybe Trump will decide to make room in his life for a dog, as well. After all, having
a pet could provide a much-needed public relations boost for the embattled covfefe
in chief. Someone who likes a dog is just, well, more likeable. Doggone it.

But alas,
Christina came back from her trip to reclaim Buddy. He seems to like us well
enough, but we are clearly no match for his mom. He curled up in her lap
contentedly while she told us about her visit to the old mining town of Bisbee.
Then he tugged at his leash, a dog on a mission, all the way out to the car for
his trip back home.

And that’s
the way it should be. Unlike Trump, we don’t have a staff of butlers, ushers
and others to take care of walking a dog or cleaning up poop in the Rose
Garden. (Maybe that’s a job Sean Spicer could handle after the demotion that’s
surely on its way.)

But as for
Linda and I, we have some memories of beloved dogs – Molly, Bonnie, Ed Beagley
Jr., Oreo and She-She -- but no dogs of our own.

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